We saw it last fall, when some dumb bunny conservative bigot parent in Florida didn't want her kids learning "Ay-rabic Numerals".
That would be the same set of numerals we use every day in the west,
with a zero, as distinct from Roman numerals; the zero is essential to
performing modern maths, and has been in use in Europe from the 14th and
15th centuries to present. It is technically an Arab/northern African
refinement on an Indian numeral concept, that we learned from the Muslim
world centuries ago. Dumb-bunny mom clearly is in serious need of not
only Ay-rab math, but a good world history course. Although like
leading a horse to water while unable to force it to drink, one could
educate but not get past the determined bigot prejudice.

And
here is another example of hate-peddling Islamophobia from the right,
from Rush Limbaugh, who is now facing his radio network going belly up
out from under him. This is an older example, dating back in 2010,
which underlines how this bigotry pushing and revisionist history has
gone on over time.

RUSH intro: ...Now, remember what NASA has become under Obama. No longer about space
exploration, we're going to ground the shuttle fleet, we're going to
lease space for astronaut flight on Russian spacecraft. NASA has been
told to focus on global warming, and now we have the NASA administrator
on al-Jazeera last Wednesday who said this.

BOLDEN: Before I became the NASA administrator he charged me with
three things. One was he wanted me to help re-inspire children to want
to get into science and math. He wanted me to expand our international
relationships, and third and perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a
way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with
dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic
contribution to science, math, and engineering.

RUSH: Now, a lot of people are saying, "Rush, the guy really didn't
mean it, he's just out there, this is just a bunch of pap for the
al-Jazeera audience, didn't really mean it." Of course he meant it, and
of course Obama said it. There's no question. Why would he say it if he
didn't mean it? He certainly meant it for the Muslim audience and
al-Jazeera. And, by the way, would somebody show me any Nobel prizes for
math or science from the Muslim world? I'm going to get in a lot of
trouble for this, but that's what we do here, we make the complex
understandable, we deal with the truth. Most of these claims about
Muslim contributions to science and math are myths. Even, folks, the
so-called Arabic numbers were actually invented by the Hindus in 500 AD.
I looked this up this weekend. It was even before there was such a
thing as Islam. The Hindus created the so-called Arabic numerals and you
can find this in Wikipedia if you want to believe it. Charles Bolden,
NASA administrator, he was asked, "Why are you here in the region?"
"Well, I'm here to spread the Muslim outreach." He said it, he meant it.
"He couldn't possibly have meant this." He did mean it.

First
of all, why is reaching out to Muslim nations a problem? They are in
many instances our allies, notably Turkey in NATO and in the Saudi
Arabian peninsula where we have key military bases, and where those
nations are important trading partners as well. India has a large Muslim
population and is very important to the US. That is a legitimate
outreach, for which Limbaugh offers no LOGICAL OR RATIONAL reason
against doing so.

Secondly, the space shuttle fleet was retired because they were old and
dilapidated and had exceeded their original term of service. They were
no longer safe to fly. Further, the private sector is in the process of
providing the replacements - which means those necessary replacements
are not coming out of the NASA taxpayer budget. If the Russians have
space vehicles that do the job, where it the benefit to our duplicating
that?

Thirdly, while ol Rushbo was over browsing
Wikipedia, he should have looked up Muslim recipients of the Nobel
prize, of which there are quite a few, including for science, such as
Mohammad Abdus Salam of Pakistan in 1979 for physics, and Ahmed Zaweil
for chemistry in 1999, and just last year Turkish scientist, Aziz
Sancar. Wikipedia has their own separate entry just for Muslim Nobel laureates, which underscores why one should never take at face value what purports to be conservative factual research.

Further,
the Nobel prize has been awarded since 1895; to use that award to the
exclusion of other scientific awards or other scientific recognition
during the height of the Muslim world's accomplishments as the metric
for establishing contributions is the worst kind of cherry picking.

Limbaugh
is dismissive of the extremely well documented accomplishments of
Muslim scientists and innovators across history, accomplishments not
only in math, but in medicine, astronomy and any other fields. These
are NOT myths. When Rush Limbaugh claims that Arab numbers were
invented by Hindus, he is being dishonest and NOT accurately
representing even the Wikipedia article content. (emphasis added is mine - DG)

The decimal Hindu-Arabic numeral system was developed in India by AD 700.[7] The development was gradual, spanning several centuries, but the decisive step was probably provided by Brahmagupta's formulation of zero as a number in AD 628.

The numeral system came to be known to both the Persian mathematician Al-Khwarizmi, whose book On the Calculation with Hindu Numerals written about 825 in Arabic, and the Arab mathematician Al-Kindi, who wrote four volumes, On the Use of the Indian Numerals (Ketab fi Isti'mal al-'Adad al-Hindi)
about 830. Their work was principally responsible for the diffusion of
the Indian system of numeration in the Middle East and the West.[9] In the 10th century, Middle-Eastern mathematicians extended the decimal numeral system to include fractions, as recorded in a treatise by Syrian mathematician Abu'l-Hasan al-Uqlidisi in 952–953. The decimal point notation was introduced by Sind ibn Ali, he also wrote the earliest treatise on Arabic numerals.A distinctive West Arabic variant of the symbols begins to emerge around the 10th century in the Maghreb and Al-Andalus, called ghubar
("sand-table" or "dust-table") numerals, which are the direct ancestor
of the modern Western Arabic numerals used throughout the world. Ghubar
numerals themselves are probably of Roman origin.[10]

We do
NOT use Hindu numerals, which is evident from a comparison between those
numeral systems, and our western Arabic numbers. What we use is the
ARAB / MUSLIM version they created from earlier Hindu figures and
shapes. It is profoundly dishonest to claim that Muslims did not devise
what we now use as western Arabic Numbers. It is stupid to reject
learning those numbers or the history behind them.

To
draw an analogy, what Limbaugh does here is similar to acknowledging
that a cow provides the milk that goes into a bowl of ice cream, but
then denying the company that turns that milk into ice cream deserves
any credit for the ice cream, in spite of clearly having contributed a
significant development and transformation of the raw material. It would
be accurate to assert that an ice cream company MADE the ice cream,
just the same as Muslims made our modern western numbers.

Wednesday, March 30, 2016

Too often I find that what I write is prompted by a catalyst or inspiration to repudiate some hateful ignorance I find promoted by faulty right wing media, including the right wing blogosphere. That is the case here, pushing back against conservative promotion of revisionist history, factual misrepresentation, bigotry, and intolerance. There is a sampling below and in part 2 of three examples.

Their willingness to gin up hate, fear and especially to create an unjustified sense of being the victims of groups of people they are attempting to exclude, marginalize, ostracize, and penalize is particularly abhorrent. Worse, these are the actions one associates with fascists and other forms of authoritarian tyranny, NOT freedom or democracy.

Nothing promotes antagonism and division, or retaliation, more than the right wing premise that inferior groups of people are somehow obtaining protected class status, that they are getting something conservatives are being denied, at the expense of conservatives. This appears to be a driving force in the 2016 election cycle on the right along with pushing terrorism fears.

An example this week was a right wing blog that made the unverified claim that Somali Muslims in St. Cloud were being given special prayer privileges and special cafeteria consideration, while Christians were being denied the full and equal practice of their faith and culture.

A word press blog with no apparent credentials for facts or fairness called the Extract was circulating this, which appears to be part of their routine promotion of Islamophobia. From there it circulated more widely in the right wing blogosphere.

I have no idea what the author meant by 'corporate Christian prayer', but this has all the elements of an attempt to create outrage over pro-Islam religious bias.

There is no evidence of FACT that the Muslim students are receiving special treatment, or that any other group has ever requested space for prayer. It is also worth noting that there is no claim that any employee of the school district is LEADING the Muslim prayers, or even an indication that Somali students sought or are making use of either the menu options or prayer options.

However, as to food service in public schools, I can certainly recall growing up Protestant in a public school where there was consistently fish or other non-meat menus on Fridays in deference to the dietary preferences of Catholic students. The accommodation for Muslim students in the cafeteria is pork free options - which arguably benefit any Jewish students who wish to avoid pork as well, but you won't find any acknowledgement of that. I would also point out that the menu selections has long been one that favored white Christian Minnesotan tastes, people who are the dominant and powerful element in St. Cloud. Expanding selections does not detract from serving that white Christian student constituency, contrary to the sense of white Christian victimization the Extract is promoting.

What is also missing is any acknowledgement that the students and their families in St. Cloud Minnesota have been treated badly previously, a larger context to efforts by the school system. That pertinent fact would diminish the ginned up false outrage. It underlines the deliberate intent to be unfair and to be biased.

Here is that context provided by the original PBS article; take a good look before reading the anti-Muslim blog post further down.

The Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations
filed a federal civil rights complaint against the St. Cloud school
district in 2011, alleging a hostile environment for the district’s
Somali students that included widespread and frequent harassment based
in large measure, on religion. The majority of the Somali community is
Muslim.
Five years later, remnants of that tension remain.
“The St. Cloud school district is a long way away from really being a
place where all students feel completely welcome,” said Jaylani
Hussein, the executive director of the council’s Minnesota chapter.
“When you’re separated, it’s really hard to feel like you’re a part
of the community,” assistant superintendent Marsha Baisch said. “You
feel different, you feel other.”
Some students still feel that way.
A 2011 settlement ending a federal civil rights investigation of the treatment of Somali students in St. Cloud requires the school district to report all allegations of harassment.

That last paragraph strongly suggests a finding of harassment and other problems were found to exist, and the efforts made were to correct problems for people who were genuinely victimized.

Again quoting from the PBS article - legitimate journalism - it is worth noting that the contributions of Somali students to the school were omitted.

Somali student-athletes played key roles on Apollo High’s 2014 state
championship soccer team, and track and field teams have drawn plenty of
Somali participants. The district has partnered with the University of
Minnesota to develop uniforms for female athletes who wear hijab, the
headscarves worn by some Muslim girls and women.

And here is the hate-blog take on the PBS article; how it promotes an unbalanced view of right wing white Christian victimization should be obvious from both what is included and what is omitted. The other posts on the blog show that this is no isolated but rather a persistent pattern of hate peddling. Conservative bigots seem particularly outraged when their efforts at bigotry are undone or obstructed. They want no obstruction, no let or hindrance to their bad and hurtful behavior.

Minnesota district restores prayer to public school — but only for Muslim students

Buried deep in a PBS article
about how the St. Cloud, Minn., school district is accommodating a
large Somali population was a telling example of religious bias. While
public schools have appropriately been barred from leading students in
corporate Christian prayer, this district is going out of its way to
satisfy the desires of the Muslim community.

ADVERTISEMENT

“In
the district’s middle and high schools,” the report stated, “Muslim
students have access to private rooms with prayer rugs for the five
daily prayers.”
Furthermore, Muslim kids will have access to special lunchroom menus
and other faith-based perks not extended to students of other faiths.

We should be proud of St. Cloud's response to a problem of bigotry and bullying, and we should be proud of the national recognition for Minnesota as a decent place to live for all citizens, including immigrants, and for our religious tolerance.That justifiable pride has to include pushing back against the bigots wherever they promote hate, fear, intolerance and exclusion. The right is rife with it, it is a persistent meme, a leitmotiv.

And for those who are wondering about this stripper chomping attorney working for the top spot campaign manager of the Trump campaign who appears to have been widely videoed committing assault, here was the original story:

Let me be clear; I have no doubt that those who write the legislation that continues to increase wealth and income inequality for the benefit of the wealthy 1% (or fraction thereof) know full well what they are doing.

They are deliberately embracing short term gain and greed over legislation that benefits the majority, the ordinary every-day citizens of the United States. Those conservatives voters in that majority don't appear to understand fundamental macroeconomics. To those who think simplistically and who believe what they want to hear without critical evaluation of it are gullible.

There have been plenty of color commentary pieces which argue that there are some, if not lots, of college educated voters, including current college students, among Trump/Drumpf supporters. But there is nothing in those fluff pieces which demonstrate any competency at the most basic level of economics 101 on the part of Trump supporters, nor have any of those fluff pieces demonstrated those with higher levels of education have any depth or breadth of knowledge about Trump/Drumpf's experience or record.

Rather they presume he is successful in business - that is mixed success at best, and failure in many respects. They presume he is knowledgeable in foreign matters because he has sold his name to entities overseas. That is not the same as having EITHER foreign affairs knowledge or knowledge in economics, not among voters, not among legislators or other elected officials, and not among candidates. It is foolish to equate the capacities the way these right wing nut voters are doing, and it reflects wishful thinking rather than rational thought.

It is abundantly clear that it is also true that conservatives don't know, or more precisely choose to ignore and deny, that immigrants, including illegal immigration, have actually been GOOD for the nation, far exceeding any costs equated with them.

There is always a problem with cognitive bias, which translates as a refusal to believe whatever factual information does not agree with one's existing beliefs, and that this is far more the case when those beliefs are also part of one's perception of identity.

Moody's Analytics is a subsidiary of Moody's Corporation which is the umbrella corporation that also owns Moody's Investment Services aka the credit rating agency that rates bonds, like the downgrades of New Jersey, Louisiana, and Kansas under poor Republican governance. So to be clear, they are different entities but part of the same whole. Moody's Analytics is known for it's research on risk and performance - and they are generally regarded pretty highly as being good at what they do.

Donald Trump’s trade war could kill millions of U.S. jobs

Trade has been one of Donald Trump's great selling points
on the campaign trail. China and Mexico are killing us, he has told
crowds on his way to the lead position for the Republican presidential
nomination, and if Trump wins the White House, he will fight back. The
implication is that getting tough with our trading partners -- by taxing
their exports as they cross America's borders -- will bring jobs and
prosperity to the United States.
An economic model of Trump's
proposals, prepared by Moody's Analytics at the request of The
Washington Post, suggests Trump is half-right about his plans. They
would, in fact, sock it to China and Mexico. Both would fall into
recession, the model suggests, if Trump levied his proposed tariffs and
those countries retaliated with tariffs of their own.
Unfortunately, the United States would fall into recession, too. Up to 4
million American workers would lose their jobs. Another 3 million jobs
would not be created that otherwise would have been, had the country not
fallen into a trade-induced downturn.
The amount of predicted economic damage surprised Mark Zandi, chief
economist for Moody's Analytics, who prepared the model. He said it is
magnified by the precarious -- and historically unusual -- state of the
U.S. and global economies right now: Under the Moody's model, the
Federal Reserve has little power to slow the recession, because interest
rates remain near zero. Congress refuses to enact any stimulus
measures, such as spending increases or tax cuts, that might increase
the federal budget deficit further.
What results, in the model,
is a downward spiral of reduced economic activity. Prices rise on
imported goods from China and Mexico, which has the effect of reducing
spending power for American consumers. If China and Mexico retaliate,
U.S. exports fall, forcing layoffs at American companies that sell to
those foreign customers. The ensuing growth slowdowns spread to other
trading partners, particularly in Europe, and cause stock markets to
plunge, which in turn slows growth even more.
...Zandi said that the forecasts undercut Trump's contention that trade is
an area where some countries "win" at the expense of others. From a
broad economic perspective, he said, shutting down trade is "a
lose-lose" for the United States and its trading partners -- and one
that could have consequences in other areas of concern for Trump and his
supporters: If tariffs cause Mexico to fall into recession, Zandi said,
"you'll have a lot more people knocking on the door" to immigrate to
America.

Conservative governance and policies are failures. Educate those who support candidates on the right as to the realities of their candidates policies - if you can get past their cognitive bias. You should have more success with the better educated, except that it appears the better educated revert to an even stronger cognitive bias against dissenting information. So....... good luck, and let us profoundly hope that Trump does not advance, or at best splits conservatives for a sound loss.

Our economic lives depend on it, and arguably as a result, so does the security and stability of the world, which is more vulnerable the less successful economies are.

Monday, March 28, 2016

In writing earlier today about the hatred on the right for anything related to sex, gender and human sexuality, the following is worth sharing from Pharyngula. It deals directly with the right wing attempt to fake they are an accredited genuinely scientific group, when their real purpose is to promote false information about children specifically and the LGBT community more generally.

We can expect to see sources like the bogus American COLLEGE of Pediatricians quoted in the upcoming anti-trans bathroom use legislation promoted by the intellectually dishonest MN GOP. Lying is for losers, and it is what the MN GOP does when the facts are not on their side; they fake the facts and they lie outright. They are not above using the work of bogus groups to do so.

For those of you not familiar with Pharyngula, they are a well-respected Minnesota blog that does an excellent job of science reporting and commentary.

I know! It sounds so official and sciencey! It’s got
“college” in it, which is formal and academic, and “pediatricians”,
which are a kind of doctor, and you can never go wrong slapping
“American” on your brand label. But they are a lie.

It’s also because the ACP is not a legitimate medical
organization; its name is designed to be mistaken for the American
Academy of Pediatrics, which is a national organization with some 60,000
members. The ACP, by contrast, is estimated to have no more than 200
members, and it has been designated a hate group by the Southern Poverty
Law Center for its anti-LGBT positions.
“The American College of Pediatricians urges educators and legislators
to reject all policies that condition children to accept as normal a
life of chemical and surgical impersonation of the opposite sex,” the
statement reads. “Facts – not ideology – determine reality.” The “facts”
that follow actually reflect a social conservative ideology that
rejects the very reality of what transgender children experience.

They’ve issued a statement that transgender kids are being harmed,
based on claims that believing you are of a gender other than the one
you were born with is a mental disorder (psychologists disagree), that
it’s just a phase kids go through (nope, again — that’s based on some
bad studies), and that sex reassignment surgery, rather than
discrimination and hatred, triggers suicide at a high rate (you can
figure that one out).
I’m all in favor of facts. Unfortunately, painting the word “fact” on a lie does not make it true.

One of my colleagues, Dan Burns over at Minnesota Progressive Project (disclaimer, I also write for them) wrote an interesting piece today on the MN GOP assault on Planned Parenthood.

You can read it here - and I suggest you do. Not only preventive health care for women would be adversely affected; PP provides health care services for men as well. That men receive care is something that I suspect few MN GOP members or supporters know.

I felt my comment to the Dan Burns piece merited a repeat here as a separate post:

Republicans hate sex, and want to stamp it out. That explains their
position on not only Planned Parenthood regarding abortion, but also
their anti-contraception position.

If that means to stop people having sex, you have to let them get
sick in their ‘lady parts’ and die, fine with Republicans, so long as
that sick-suffer-and-die and/or go bankrupt with medical bills stuff
only happens to women. In the apparent thinking of the right, human
beings are men, male is the default basic setting or version, and women
are an aberration. That is what is suggested by the continued funding
of boner pills and prostate care, etc. for men remaining in place would
show.

Of course, very few Republicans appear to know that men are also provided services at planned parenthood.

It is what was clearly the intent of Republican mega-donor Foster
Friess believed when he suggested an aspirin between women’s knees was
all the contraception you required — just DON’T HAVE SEX. Sex and
gender scare the right, even as it makes raging hypocrites of them.

I would go so far as to argue that at least a part of the antagonism
on the right for Hispanics (legal or otherwise) is that they have a
higher birthrate than other ethnic groups — certainly higher than the
white Right. That must mean they are having S-E-X!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A desire to eradicate sex, and a hate and fear attitude for sex also
goes a long way towards explaining the right wing antipathy towards any
gender issue, particularly trans in bathrooms, gay marriage, any LGBT
protections including from bullying, and a part of the right’s
resistance to hate crime law.
Guns and gun violence are fine with the right, but NO SEX or SEXUALITY.

I would argue that the right is incapable of engaging in sane risk
assessment, and so long as they have this hate-on for human sex and
sexuality, they won’t appropriately consider health risks any more than
they do other risks. That reflects a truly f*cked set of priorities and values.

It puts the ultimate hypocrisy to claiming to be the pro-family and family values party. It is just one more way in which the right cannot govern effectively or wisely.

The dumbest conspiracy theory of the week started (of course) by right wing conspiracy crazies; but sadly, a few left wing election cycle watchers fell for it too.

The conspiracy theory is that Helen Purcell, the Maricopa, Arizona county recorder, the woman who so badly botched up the elections there that calls have been made for federal investigation and prosecution. Right wingers have tried to float this as some Clinton conspiracy to steal the AZ primary, asserting that Helen Purcell was the wife of the Lt. Governor Joe Purcell, under Bill Clinton.

Except that nothing could be further from the truth. It appears that Helen Purcell, the County Recorder, is not the widow of Joe Purcell of Arkansas. She was, per her official county biography, born in Kansas, and lived the rest of her life entirely in Arizona - as a Republican. I can find no evidence that she is or was married, or that Purcell is not her maiden name either. Further the details of her professional life indicate a separate career of her own that is inconsistent with a life in Arkansas at the same time.

Don't be a dummy; don't uncritically accept silly stories without asking questions and doing at least minimal fact checking. Only the most gullible fail to consider that there easily can be more than one person with the same or a similar sounding name. That's grade school level knowledge.

For those who want to see it for themselves, here is the bio link for the Maricopa, Arizona County Recorder, Helen Purcell.

As Trump and Cruz continue to advance as nominees on the right, and with the conduct of their supporters.............we may need to revisit being called the Asshole Nation, including by our closest allies, as well as given our record under Dubya.

Yesterday there was a video circulating that purported to show Bill Clinton bashing the Obama administration on behalf of Hillary Clinton - in spite of the illogic of that, given she was a prominent member of that administration as Sec State.

NO. WRONG. And also BAD. The right should be swatted with a metaphoric rolled up newspaper, and so should anyone who bought into the right wing nut lie.

In service to truth and clarity, and just because it is so much fun to push back against the dirty and corrupt dealings of the right. When they go after Hilary instead of each other it reflects that they are losing by their internal politics.

And here’s Bill Clinton’s statement tonight about this fake controversy:

An aide to Bill Clinton says the legacy he was referring to was Republicans’ obstructionism.
“When Republicans controlled the White House, their trickle-down
approach drove our economy to the brink of a collapse. After President
Obama was elected, Republicans made it their number one goal to block
him at every turn,” spokesman Angel Urena said in a statement. “That
unprecedented obstruction these last eight years is their legacy, and
the American people should reject it by electing Hillary Clinton to
build on President Obama’s success so we can all grow and succeed
together.”

We share the grief with those in Belgium after the terrorist attacks, and applaud their courage and resolution, their national response, in the face of violence and loss. It is correctly being reported that given the EU and NATO entities located in Belgium make this as much an attack on the international community (particularly the western world) as it is specific to Belgium.

I applaud the courage and practicality of the Belgians in responding to the tragedy by using twitter to organize private cars to help people stranded by the attack return to their homes. Well done.

I would argue that it is inevitable that in fighting a war on terrorism, we will experience attacks, people will be hurt or killed, but that we cannot let that shake our resolve or let it stampede us to act out of fear, including how we vote. There is no magic solution that will ever keep us perfectly safe from all harm, not walls, not increasing our military activity in the middle East. Least of all should we let this gin up hatred for all Muslims because of the extremism of a few. Time for Americans to toughen up, to emulate the stiff upper lip of the Brits, in how we respond to attempts to frighten us.

The two posters below were prepared by the British government in 1939, in anticipation of attacks in the coming WW II. We should keep the advice in mind in the face of terrorism as well, in the face of attempts to frighten us away from fighting extremism by any name or acronym.

The attacks in Paris were the result of the success by allied forces in bombing ISIS oil, along with the economic 'war' with oil prices being at record lows. That has caused ISIS to begin to go broke, to severely impair their ability to buy weapons and ammunition, explosives, or to pay their fighters, even to feed their fighters. The Paris attacks were an attempt to stop the French from being effective against ISIS, as the French were taking the lead in those targeted bombings of ISIS resources. ISIS claimed that was the reason for the attacks, and our own leaders have said the same.

Likewise, the terrorist attacks in Brussels is a push-back against the effectiveness of the Belgians since the Paris attacks in rooting out terrorists. Success means push backs; it does not mean we run around in hysteria as a result of such attacks, it means we recognize this is what winning looks like. We must double down, and that we recognize that we might have more of these before we establish some kind of limited victory. Realistically, given the complexity of the problems involved that have led to extremism, limited victory is the optimum possible.

Finally, I'd like to share a graphic from a European friend of mine; the translation is "Finally when one see what can be done in the name of God, one has to ask what activity is left for the devil."

I am seeing a lot of hateful things being done in the name of God or by those who claim deep religious belief in God, and it is not from Muslims, but from Christians. Let us look to ourselves first in considering the wisdom below.

Monday, March 21, 2016

Trump supporters claim he 'tells it like it is'. Apparently they really don't listen to him; he changes his story often as to the cost of the wall, etc., and then they decline to think critically about what he says.

Fortunately, John Oliver has looked at those statements critically for them, not that they will listen. They don't want to know the truth from Trump any more than from the other GOP candidates in the past who told them rubbish and used Republican math, with numbers that never add up.

Fortunately when Oliver looks critically, it is not only informative, it is hilarious.

Sunday, March 20, 2016

A documentary was made of this incident, which occurred in 2006 in New Jersey; the teacher was reprimanded but continued to teach, and continued to assert he did nothing wrong. The documentary won an award at a New Jersey film festival.
The student involved graduated, and then went on to a successful post-secondary education.
Tyson failed to remove the ignorant and scientifically illiterate from the ranks of public school teachers. Fortunately, the student who opposed the ignorance was not permanently affected:

LaClair lives in New York having just graduated from The New School with a degree in Culture and Media and hosts a radio show.

Whether you wear an hijab or a yamulka, whether you speak Spanish or Swahili, or some other language than English, you shouldn't have to fear hate crimes.

I came across a couple of news stories about hate crimes in
Minnesota, and an interactive map of the United States showing Trump
supporter violence that included one of those stories - possibly
inaccurately - in Minnesota. Please see the Minnesota instance on the map below.

The incident that shows up on the map for Minnesota was the beer mug
face-bashing of a Muslim woman in an Applebee's restaurant, for speaking
Swahili with her family. The same woman testified in the judiciary
committee legislative hearing on hate crimes on Friday.

To be fair, while this Minnesota incident above was, clearly, a hate crime, it is far less
clear that the woman who committed the crime (allegedly) is or was a
Trump supporter. She might very well have been a supporter of one of
the other candidates, or perhaps none of the numerous candidates running
at the time may have been sufficiently extreme for her. (The rest of
the incidents on the interactive map appear to be more legitimately committed by
Trump supporters.) However the notion the USA is, or should be, exclusively English speaking is more strongly a conservative one, and conservatives tend to reject the notion of learning foreign languages as well. I'd go further; in my experience, Americans actually expect people in other countries to speak English to them, and object to those people speaking their own language in their own country.

The conservative position appears to be because it is more often conservative
extremists who are committing the hate crimes, not because of any
legitimate rationale for opposing a change to hate crime law penalties.
Apparently hate and violence are conservative 'family values' they are
trying to protect, or their notion of freedom.

It is as ludicrous to assert that
any other motive exists as it is to assert that conservative obstruction
of the nomination of a replacement for Scalia to the SCOTUS is about
"the will of the voters". This is particularly evident now that Merrick
Garland has been nominated and the GOP in the Senate have indicated
they would confirm him after November 8th, but before the newly elected
members of the Senate and the new president are sworn in if they lose
the 2016 election.

Over the weekend, I watched that documentary, "KKK: the Fight for
White Supremacy"; and during the week I had caught the televised
hearings from the MN lege on increasing the penalties for hate crimes in
Minnesota. The woman in the Applebee's incident testified at that
legislative hearing. The conservative legislators in the hearing opposed
any increase in hate crime penalties, effectively trying to give cover,
protection from consequences and penalties, to conservative hate
criminals. They argued that to make hate crimes penalties higher was to
exalt the victims of hate crimes over other victims. I certainly never heard the argument that when stiffer penalties were
applied for users and vendors of the form of crack cocaine over powdered
cocaine in enacting drug laws, that the victims of the harsher penalized crime were 'exalted', for
example. Rather the argument was that the harsher laws were intended as
a deterrent to drug activity. (I have yet to see
anyone who reasonably believes a penalty for a crime 'exalts' the
victims.)

It was interesting to me that in the state lege hearing on increasing penalties for hate crimes, one of those legislators in favor of increased hate crime law documented that of the immigrants over the time of our state's existence, only 25% came from English speaking countries, while the overwhelming majority of the other 75% did not speak English when they arrived, and spoke their native language among themselves. In other words, who we are, who we have always been, has been multi-lingual. Even early schools taught students in Swedish, and German, and other immigrant languages, not English.

There is an established premise of severity of penalties in law operating as a deterrent to crime. While this does not appear to be true of the death penalty, it remains the premise for all of the legislation initiated by the right to be tough on crime that has led to our high incarceration rate.

What distinguishes the nature of a hate crime from any other individual crime is that it is a crime against an individual or individuals which intimidates and affects a greater number of people in the same group, not only the direct victim. This can be by intent, or it can simply be an effect; but the reality is that there is a larger and broader group of secondary victims. In a very real sense, the direct victim of a hate crime is a proxy victim for the other members of the targeted group; attacking one is a means to attack all.

Nowhere was this more evident than in the mass shooting in a predominantly black church in South Carolina last year, where the intention was to instigate a race war, which resulted in, among other effects, the removal of the civil war battle flag from state house grounds - to the disapproval of white racists. Both the racism and the disapproval over removal of the flag, as well as the intentional intimidation of black citizens, was evident in the BBC documentary filming in South Carolina at the time of the mass shooting, "KKK: the fight for White Supremacy". Those members who share the same targeted group as the shooting victims emphatically express being affected, as victims of intimidation, as a result of the hate crime - and it makes sense that they would do so. Jews similarly have expressed feeling fear in response to anti-Semitic violence and hate attacks, a reasonable response, even when they were not the direct victims.

It is past the time when conservatives must stop defending and protecting hate criminals, and to start repudiating them and penalizing them. Republicans must take back their party from extremists and tea partiers, and become a party of principles and real values again. Let's start with the proposed law in the Minnesota legislature.

Thursday, March 17, 2016

In my experience, the right fears socialism without properly knowing what it is, and without correctly identifying who or where socialism works well. That would include nations like Denmark, which is a hybrid capitalist/socialist state.

I attended the Republican caucuses held March 1st; the leadership warned about the DIRE possibility of BECOMING DENMARK. No one would elaborate on what part of resembling Denmark was so fearful, it was an accepted wisdom without any reference to reality.

The report found that inequality was strongly associated with unhappiness —
a stark finding for rich countries like the United States, where rising
disparities in income, wealth, health and well-being have fueled
political discontent.

Denmark is a very successful nation, a very small nation relative to the United States - surely no one is concerned about national shrinkage?

Our differences with Denmark underline the political issues and pressures driving the 2016 election cycle.

It is also a nation that is widely regarded, including by its own citizens as less corrupt, as being economically more successful as measured by GDP - it is strongly business friendly. It is more successful in terms of educational outcome, of health care outcomes (including cost management), in terms of life expectancy, but also in terms of pro-family policies and infrastructure safety, and energy policy. The average citizen is far more affluent and has far more economic and social mobility than the citizens of the US.

Critics can hardly call the Danes godless heathens; the state religion is evangelical Lutheranism. Rather I would prefer to see the US retain the freedom of religion guaranteed by no state religion being established. But the nation has remarkable religious tolerance, arguably more than that shown by the conservative evangelicals who are Islamophobic.

Wednesday, March 16, 2016

So far, Cruz carried Texas, his home state, and in spite of trailing is at least still in the race. Kasich is still in the race after winning Ohio, but he can't win nationally.

Rubio is out; he couldn't win his home state of Florida.

Neither could the other Republicans who are out so far. Not only Rubio couldn't carry Florida, where he was born and raised, but Jeb Bush couldn't carry it either. Ben Carson couldn't carry Florida (he lives there) OR his native state of Michigan. Chris Christie couldn't carry his home state of New Jersey, not after his handling of Hurricane Sandy, Bridge-gate, the pension fund fiasco, and the nine drops of the state credit rating. Scott Walker couldn't carry his home state of Wisconsin, with his corrupt governance, notably his campaign manager getting millions of state $ for his sports facility; last election cycle, Paul Ryan lost Wisconsin, and is unlikely to be able to carry it this time if he is drafted in a brokered convention. Bobby Jindal couldn't carry his home state of Louisiana - and was so unpopular, it is possible he ran for office only as a graceful out from his badly failed state office. Rick Santorum has never been able to carry Pennsylvania in his runs for president. I doubt from the polls that Mike Huckster-bee could carry Arkansas either. In the previous election cycle, neither Tim Pawlenty or Michele Bachmann could win Minnesota either.

Hillary Clinton would crush Donald Trump in a New York State general election matchup: poll

It is pretty much a given that a candidate, any serious candidate, has to be able to win their own home state. And ALL of those candidates KNEW going into the race, that they were unlikely to change their popularity sufficiently to carry their home states. Which raises the question, were they ever REALLY seriously candidates, or were they just in it to make money in some way, using election law?

Pretty much the situation is that NONE of the other candidates who were even nominally in the race on the right could have carried their own states, if you go down the entire list. Which is a short way of saying that where they know you, REALLY know you, they don't like you.

Ben Carson's presidential campaign is many things. A curiosity, an
oddity, a fascinating yet disturbing commentary on today's Republican
Party? Absolutely. But there's also some reason to believe that it's a
giant confidence game.
That isn't to say that Carson isn't genuinely trying to become
president. He has even moved into the lead in a couple of recent
national polls. But the inner workings of his campaign will look awfully
familiar to those who understand how one right-wing movement has been
bilking gullible conservatives over the last half-century.
...As conservative radio host Erick Erickson says, "Carson's actual expenditure list reads like a wealthy Republican getting played by consultants."

While Donald Trump keeps claiming he is funding his own campaign, the reality is that he is also seeking donors. He isn't paying for his own campaign out of his pocket, he is LOANING his campaign funds, which are repaid out of donations. Trump is running on suckers' money. In different ways that might be the case for the majority of the rest of the GOP candidates, and has been for some time now, given the reality of their unfavorables.

Conservatives, with their opposition to campaign finance laws, such as their support for Citizens United, have made democracy into one big con game to fleece conservative donors and to sell out the country to special interests, all while patting themselves on the back for their piety and rectitude.

Good thing responsibility isn't, wasn't, and never will be a calling card of Donald J Trump. Sanders never advocated violence, Trump did. Sanders never asked his folks to "punch folks in the face", Trump has. Sanders may or may not have asked his supporters to go to Trump's rallies, but there's NOTHING illegal about such things. Sanders say he didn't, I believe him but even if I didn't, so what, they're allowed to be there and lawfully protest. It wasn't a Sanders supporter who punched someone who was being escorted out in the face, it was Trump's. No, I suspect it was Trump's hateful vitriole, like saying that Islam fundamentally hates the US that prompted people to show up and call Trump what he is, a hate-monger. I suspect it was his laughable excuse for why he failed to condemn and repudiate the KKK and David Duke that has brought people out to call Trump what he is, a man who uses racists and racism to his advantage. No no, poor Mr. Trump can't possibly be the cause, can he? His words of hate can't breed hate, can they?

Now Trump says he's going to ask his folks to go to Sanders' rallies. I suspect strongly they'll be treated far more graciously than the bigots who go to Trump's rallies. I further suspect mostly they're cowards and won't go. But let's assume they will, what is Trump trying to do? Provoke violence?

Fool.

Donald J Trump, I call you a total loser. Take accountability for your words and what they've bread. It's not your fault people were violent, but it is your fault they were ready to be so.

Saturday, March 12, 2016

In the coverage of the event, (or should it be called a non-event, since it was canceled?), there is plenty of blame and criticism to go around.
I'm all for vigorous political expression, for enthusiastic rallies. I'm entirely against any efforts by one side to suppress the political expression of those who disagree.
Of all the coverage of the activity, I found the Guardian coverage from the UK to be the most balanced and accurate.
NO ONE had their freedom of speech trampled; the right to free speech is exclusively a right to freedom from GOVERNMENT restriction or obstruction of speech. It does not extend to any other entity behaving so as to impede expression, but that doesn't make it acceptable for individuals or groups of people to shut down or prevent political expression. We are a nation that prizes persuasion not thuggery, or at least, we should be.
It is worth noting that Donald Trump (and VP candidate Sarah Palin before him, the right seems chronically unclear on this point) is unclear on the important distinction of what is a right, and what is a value. From the Guardian:

Scuffles broke out between Trump supporters, protesters and police, and a number of arrests were made, including of at least one reporter. As the mayhem took hold, Trump was reduced to complaining about the situation on the air, telling MSNBC: “It’s sad when you can’t have a rally. Whatever happened to freedom of speech?”

NOTHING happened to freedom of speech. The police did everything they should have done; government promoted free speech by attempting to allow both sides to express themselves. Those who behaved violently, on both sides, were wrong, were bad, but were not interfering with freedom of speech either. But they contributed NOTHING to political expression other than an example of how not to behave.

Police walked up and down the arena stairs holding sheaves of plastic handcuffs amid fraught but as yet non-violent scenes. Attendees grabbed signs from each other’s hands and several dozen people were ejected from the event long before formalities were scheduled to begin. At least one section of young people was cleared out by police long before the event began, including many of Middle Eastern appearance. “Just because I look like them doesn’t mean I’m with them,” said one.

I condemn Bernie Sanders supporters if they were involved. We don't know, given conservative dirty tricks, how many Sandser supporters were genuinely involved, and who might have been paid provocateurs from Trump rivals. It should be sufficient to condemn both. It is also important to condemn the conservative admiration of such violence that makes it a desideratum, in a way which is not found on the left.

There is a growing catalogue of violence at Trump events. In the past week alone an attack on a non-violent protester led to criminal charges against a Trump supporter, and Michelle Fields, a reporter for conservative website Breitbart, was allegedly assaulted by Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s campaign manager.
Trump’s rhetoric has done little to keep it in check. When the Republican frontrunner appeared in St Louis earlier on Friday, for an event that entailed more than 30 arrests, he complained: “Part of the problem and part of the reason it takes so long [to kick protesters out] is nobody wants to hurt each other any more.” Trump added: “There used to be consequences. There are none any more. These people are so bad for our country. You have no idea folks, you have no idea.”

Trump has also asked his supporters from his podium to hurt people, and expressed his own desire to punch a protester in the face. That was not the only incident where Trump endorsed and encouraged violence against those who disagreed with him, including falsely representing the NON-violent protester as deserving violence.

“Here’s a guy, throwing punches, nasty as hell, screaming at everything else, when we’re talking,” Trump told the crowd, although CNN reported the man did not appear to be fighting with security officers.
“The guards are very gentle with him. He’s walking out, like, big high-fives, smiling, laughing,” Trump continued, before saying to loud cheers: “I’d like to punch him in the face, I tell ya.”
The incident was the latest in a string of controversial comments by Trump regarding protesters at his rallies. In November, after a Black Lives Matter protester was beaten and choked after disrupting a rally, Trump appeared to condone the rough treatment.
“Maybe he should have been roughed up, because it was absolutely disgusting what he was doing,” he said on Fox News at the time.

From another Guardian account, this one detailing the personal experience of one of their reporters:

The Trump campaign has tried write off rally violence as something he
didn’t sanction, but now his campaign manager has manhandled a reporter
...The incidents are piling up. A Black Lives Matters protester was sucker-punched by a white bystander at a rally in Fayetteville, North Carolina. A young black woman was surrounded and shoved aggressively by a number of individuals at a rally in Louisville, Kentucky. A black protester was tackled, then punched and kicked by a group of men as he curled up on the ground in Birmingham, Alabama. Immigration activists were shoved and stripped of their signs by a crowd in Richmond, Virginia. A Latino protester was knocked down and kicked by a Trump supporter in Miami.
...
The Lewandowski incident and the one at Radford feature the assault
of the press, not the assault of protesters, but both types of violence
are of a piece: they are about silencing voices of dissent, silencing
critics, silencing truth in a campaign built around racist
fear-mongering and bombast.
And that – it shouldn’t need to be said, but it does – is
undemocratic. Activism and the media play a vital role in any healthy
democracy, and to allow this kind of brutality and silencing of free
speech to go unaddressed is worse than undemocratic: it’s fascist.

Again, like the Chicago example, where the Trump campaign lied about conferring with law enforcement, the Trump campaign also lied about the involvement of Radford University, which had little hands-on involvement with that Trump rally. This underlines a pattern of behavior, of refusing appropriate accountability, that does not bode well for someone who thinks they can be a leader.
While I do not condone the Sanders protesters for attempting to shut down the Trump rally, as distinct from protesting against it, the Sanders protester criticism was apt. Again, from the Guardian article:

After the postponement was announced a Trump campaign statement said: “Mr Trump just arrived in Chicago and after meeting with law enforcement has determined that for the safety of all of the tens of thousands of people that have gathered in and around the arena, tonight’s rally will be postponed to another date.
“Thank you very much for your attendance and please go in peace.”
Despite Trump’s statement that he had consulted law enforcement, the Chicago police department emphasised it had no involvement in the decision."

and

As one, Violet Ornelas, 28, gleefully told the Guardian: “If he can’t even handle Chicago, what makes him think he could handle Isis?”

Shame on Trump for creating the violence on his side, for hiding behind the police for his decision - the coward, and for failing to understand that political protesters in the USA, or in formulating foreign policy, the decision to de-escalate rather than escalate violence is always important. That is a lesson Trump supporters need to learn as well.

Thursday, March 3, 2016

I found this clip while looking for videos relating to the Black Panthers open carrying and the origin of the Mulford Act. This was in the day when "conservatives" believed in law and order as opposed to encouraging the reality challenged right in their delusions. Note comment about the Second Amendment toward the end of this.

KRON-TV News footage from the late 1960s in which an official argues
there should be greater gun controls, referencing the Black Panthers
showing up at an airport armed with guns to meet Betty Shabazz (Malcolm
X's widow). The official says he does not believe that in the "urban
environment we have in California" that we should allow people to carry
guns "in an excited and hostile atmosphere," and laments that there was
no way to prosecute the Panthers under the current law. "We have to
protect society from nuts with guns." Ends with a brief overhead glimpse
of Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale walking down stairs. This footage was
probably used in 'Eyes on the Prize II' and may or may not be a
compilation of clips rather than one report. [Originally shot on 16mm
film, a BetaSP videotape master was made by KRON-TV and was used to
produce this low-res online screener.] Remastered, edited and catalogued
for the web by Shira Peltzman.

May we aspire to deserve better than a any of these terrible people. For those not familiar with Rick Mercer, he is a CBD comedian and political satirist. Another tip of the hat to our neighbors north of the border.

That would be the border 1/3 the length of our southern border where Trump wants to put up his wall, the border about which Trump is geographically too ignorant to be president.

From Factcheck.org
FactChecking the 10th GOP Debate
In a Texas showdown, Republican presidential candidates stretched the truth in the last debate before Super Tuesday.

By FactCheck.org
Posted on February 26, 2016
There were several false and misleading claims in the Feb. 25 debate:

Businessman Donald Trump flip-flopped on making his tax returns public, one year after saying he would “certainly” release returns if he ran for president.

Trump also made the dubious claim that he “can’t” release them while being audited.

Trump said Sen. Marco Rubio was “totally wrong” to claim that Trump had to pay a million dollars as a fine for hiring workers who were in the country illegally. Rubio wasn’t totally wrong. Trump lost a $1 million lawsuit and then settled on appeal for an undisclosed sum.

Sen. Ted Cruz claimed that a Wall Street Journal article said the state of Arizona has saved “hundreds of millions of dollars” on “welfare, on prisons, and education,” due to tough illegal immigration legislation. But the article said nothing about “welfare.”

Cruz said that Trump favored the U.S. intervention in Libya that led to the removal of Moammar Gadhafi from power. Trump denied having said that, but Cruz was right.

Cruz claimed that Sen. Harry Reid favors Trump because “he can cut a deal with him.” But Reid has denounced Trump as a “hateful demagogue.”

Trump wrongly claimed that Americans “pay more personal tax” than residents anywhere in the world. In 2014, the U.S. wasn’t even in the top 10 of industrialized nations in terms of tax revenues as a percentage of GDP or per capita.

Trump claimed he was beating Hillary Clinton “badly” in two polls. He’s barely ahead in one and narrowly trails in the other.
Cruz claimed Trump has donated more than $50,000 to members of the Senate who cosponsored the so-called Gang of Eight immigration bill in 2013. We tallied $26,000 total, most of it contributed years before the bill was being considered.

Trump said he wasn’t proposing to build a wall along the U.S.-Canadian border because it’s “about four times longer” than the border with Mexico. Actually, it’s less than three times longer.

Wednesday, March 2, 2016

and beautifully encapsulating the plight of the saner factions of the GOP......

The above reminds me of the lyric from an old Smother's Brother's routine, a parody of the cowboy / western song "the streets of Laredo" commenting, in a sense, on style over substance. In much the same way, Trump appears to believe that one only has to masquerade as a Christian to be accepted as one, regardless of the evidence to the contrary in his words and behavior.

Really Ben, what took you so long? The writing has been on the big wall for a long time now. You peaked too early.

Meanwhile, Kasich is in some conservative alternate reality / state of denial, still asserting he is doing even better than expected -- which his pretty bad. Presumably he is hoping to have enough delegates to barter into a VP position, since it is clear that no way in heck is he going to be anywhere near being the presidential nominee. Not even if he uses the most extreme version of 'Republican math' where numbers have no standard value like the numeric values in real mathematics.

The presidency is not happening, and I predict never will happen, for either Ben Carson or John Kasich. Rather like the Queen lyrics for the video above, they are always about to make their political mark in national politics, but no matter how much banner waving, it won't - likely - happen.

Buddy you're a boy make a big noisePlayin' in the street gonna be a big man some dayYou got mud on yo' faceYou big disgraceKickin' your can all over the placeSingin'

We will we will rock youWe will we will rock you

Buddy you're a young man hard manShouting in the street gonna take on the world some dayYou got blood on yo' faceYou big disgraceWavin' your banner all over the place

We will we will rock youSing itWe will we will rock you

Buddy you're an old man poor manPleadin' with your eyes gonna makeYou some peace some dayYou got mud on your faceBig disgraceSomebody betta put you back into your place

We will we will rock youSing itWe will we will rock youEverybodyWe will we will rock youWe will we will rock youAlright

Tuesday, March 1, 2016

It is Hillary's election to lose; if she doesn't muck it up, it looks as if -- 8 months and a few days from the general election -- and if things do not change radically from the present, that it is going to be a new President Clinton in the White House come January 2017.

Of the two, I would posit Trump finally making a mistake big enough to stick to him even more so than Hillary, although it would not surprise me to see her make gaffes in the coming months, as well as to see her facing vicious oppo attacks.

Via aol.news and the poll crunching from Realpolitik, combining the most pertinent and recent polls - Hillary to win the general election in November by 14%, followed by Bernie Sanders to win over Trump by 5.9%.

Not only does Trump do poorly matched up against either Bernie or Hillary, but Ted Cruz does even worse, and Marco Rubio even worse than Cruz.

THIS is what winning looks like, when one of the two major parties insists on being the stupid party. That Trump is even a potential right wing candidate has made the US of A a laughingstock on the world stage -- and rightly as well as right-wingedly so.
:

Turning up the heat on right wing lies

Opinions

“Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'”

― Isaac Asimov, "A Cult of Ignorance," Newsweek (Jan. 1980)

We stand with PP

past wisdom

"I don't want to see religious bigotry in any form. It would disturb me if there was a wedding between the religious fundamentalists and the political right. The hard right has no interest in religion except to manipulate it."Billy Graham - Parade (1 February 1981)

An astute observation from Bertrand Russell

"Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones."

Penigma is pro-feminism, pro-thought

Ignorance is a choice

Just Do it!

Search This Blog

Follow by Email

You Are Here

Rules

Citing factual sources is encouraged, and critical reasoning is prized here. Spam comments will be removed. Harassment, intimidation, or interference will not be tolerated.

2. Trolls and flamers will be warned; if they continue they will be banned.

Discourteous behavior discourages discussion and debate, and is contrary to sharing the widest possible range of view points.

3. We will try to be scrupulous in giving credit and proper attribution, and also in disclosing associations that are a potential bias.

We ask that you do so as well.

4. Courtesy is expected and required.

Penigma is NOT an 'adults only' blog. We deal with a range of subjects that include those which are controversial, and are of interest to mature individuals rather than young children.

We intend this blog to be suitable for readers under the age of 18. Therefore, a condition of participating here is that our comments be self-edited, avoiding obscenities or similarly vulgar, abusive, threatening, insulting, or otherwise objectionable language when expressing opinions. Substantive points can be made without it.

5. We welcome suggestions and corrections, either through our comment option, or by use of the above contact email.

This is a moderated blog; there may be some delay between writing a comment and when it is posted by an administrator. We will attempt to be as prompt as possible, but ask your patience.

We hope that you enjoy reading Penigma, and encourage you to share your thoughts with us and the Penigma readers in turn, even if you disagree with us. _________________

The opinions expressed on this web log are the personal opinions of the authors. No reproduction or re-use of these personal works or articles published on Penigma.blogspot.com is permitted without the expressed written consent of the author; they are intellectual property, and so is this blog.

No rights of privacy or ownership by the commenter exists over comments. Once they are submitted to Penigma they become an integral part of the Penigma content and become part of our intellectual property. _________